


The Small Crack

by ukaia_dorei



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Earthquakes, Just kind of an odd idea I had, Mention of a broken ankle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 16:50:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20696843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ukaia_dorei/pseuds/ukaia_dorei
Summary: It started as a small crack, one the size of your palm, hardly deep enough to be called a crack, on the main road to the castle.I just had this little idea of what might have happened from the town's perspective when the King, became The Prince and The Duke. I hope you enjoy it!Sorry it's not very long. Please let me know if I missed any tags!





	The Small Crack

It all started with a crack. 

A simple, small, size of your palm, crack in the main road leading to the palace. Now this wasn't really something out of the ordinary, roads get cracks and dips in them all the time! Except the road, this road, had never had a so much as a chip in it before. It was talked about for a little while, and then went from the odd to the every day. Roads got older, and things changed they couldn't be worried about a small tiny blemish on the road. Life was busy, and a tiny mark on the road was nothing! 

Then it widened, became the length of an arm, and people noticed the change.. and they noticed when more cracks began to form on the road. They noticed that now as they became more, some of them were shallow, barley enough to be called a crack, some we deep enough to catch the carriage wheels and break them. they felt unease, why was the main road breaking down? They were assured from the palace, from the King things would be alright, and they believed, they believed him and the believed the promise that things would be aright. People from the palace came out, they filled in the cracks with dirt and packed it down. They made the road safe again for the carriages and the people were happy.... for a short time.

And then more formed.. deeper and wider, kids began to play Jack be Nimble jumping back and forth over the cracks, laughing as they sang the song. That ended when the edge of one crumbled and a child slipped their ankle catching in the gap, twisting and breaking it. They were otherwise unharmed, but the parents warned the kids about not playing around near the cracks anymore. It made more unease as the people realized, the ground around the cracks was unstable. They tried to fill in more dirt but the cracks were showing up more, deeper, faster. Every day there were new ones, and it wasn't just on the main road anymore. They began to form all over town. Cracks were showing on the roads, breaking the dirt and the cobblestone alike.. trees began to be knocked down as larger fissures began to form in the forest around the castle. They couldn't be called cracks anymore, no these were deeper, enough to swallow a person if you were not careful in the dark. A curfew was put in place, to keep them safe, from the dangers of falling in them in the dark. 

Fearful the people turned to the palace, turned to the King, begging for answers, and for the first time in history.. the King did not respond. No smiling face came out with promises, no broad shoulders worked to help fill dirt in, no joyful singing soothed the people's nerves. There were no strange stories told to make them forget their worries and laugh or groan at the tales. And so the fear grew, along with the cracks. The people were told the King was ill, but trying to recover to come and help them. They held onto hope, the king would make things better. He always had before, so he would now!

Finally after months.. silence from the King, cracks forming everywhere, people having to move from their homes being dangerously close to them. The entire town shook, a great heaving spreading the cracks wider deeper, they were all fissures now, houses crumbled, carriages were thrown to the sides, children and parents screamed in fear, and still there was no King to help! The army spread out helping rescue those they could reach between the earth's trembling. The towns people didn't understand, why was the king not helping? Why had nobody seen him in weeks? What illness could lay their King down so low that he would not come out to help the people they knew he held dearly to him? They couldn't focus on that though, they had lives to save, injuries to tend to, people to locate among rubble.

The earth finally stilled, just as dusk fell over the land. And just as the last light of the sun slipped below the horizon, a scream shattered though the air. It came from the palace, and seemed to shake every person to their very core. It reverberated though the air with an inhuman power... And ti was full of pain and suffering, misery that none who heard it could comprehend. As the scream sliced the quiet night air, the entire world shook once more. The world shook and shook and the scream went on and on. And the cracks became fissures, became gaping holes and the world spread. The kingdom split. the castle shook and then it too split! The stones rained down as people screamed and tried to find cover. Houses collapsed, roads were gobbled up in the gorge that was forming. The tower split from the castle, and with it a quarter of the town went, pulled away by the pain filled scream, pulled into the dark shadows of the night, separating families, and loved ones. They could not go after them, the gorge was now a canyon, it yawned wide and impossible to pass or see the bottom of. 

The screaming finally stopped... The world finally went still. On the other side of the canyon they could just barely see the lone tower that had split from the castle, leaving it open and exposed to the world, lights flickered , and then the tower began to change. The stones seemed to become darker, the lights changed from the warm orange reds to strange greenish hues. The trees began to twist and change, the darkness became more tangible, and the forest began to spread swallowing the part of the village up. The canyon began to fill in, Light trees and Dark trees raced towards each other clashing in the middle. The noise was indescribable as anything but a great thunderous boom! The trees tangled and light and dark pressed and twisted upon each other. The sounds and the changes went on for hours, only stopping just as daylight broke over the horizon. Finally it was settled, and the world was now forever changed. The dark and the light separated and hidden from each other. 

From the castle, a person exited. They were stumbling, pale, holding themselves as if in immense pain, confusion on their face, seeking something that could not be found any longer. The Prince emerged. He took in the sight of his kingdom, of the peoples suffering, and putting aside the agony he had gone though.. he began to try and help the people.

Something went though all the people as they saw him, as the watched him... they understood. The King was no more.. there was now the Prince and the Duke.. the cracks had been the King desperately trying to hold himself together in the face of whatever trial he had undergone. And he'd suffered, and suffered as he'd failed, until he could no longer contain it, and his form had torn it's self apart, just as the town had. The people didn't know why they knew this now, but the knew it, and they knew it in their hearts the King had tried with all his might to contain the change, the Split. 

They found they couldn't be angry at him, this new Prince that had taken the place of their King. they sympathized. The people could see the haunting pain in his eyes, the loss of something they couldn't understand as he put them first, as he worked, stumbling sometimes as if his balance wasn't sorted out. And they loved him for it. They mourned the loss of the King, they mourned the loss of their loved ones, separated from them. The Prince unable to provide a path to them, to get them back. He begged their forgiveness for his inability to bring them back, he mourned with them, and he payed respects to those lost. They understood he'd lost as much as they had, and they saw his own suffering that matched their own. So they forgave him, over and over as he apologized over and over. 

Years passed, and the new became the old, and the ones separated were remembered and missed, but life continued. 

One day, a path opened up, cutting through the entire forest, and those that had been lost began to arrive, they were changed and different. However they were still loved, and in return they loved as well. 

And the town celebrated, knowing this meant the Duke and the Prince were finally on the path to healing.


End file.
